With Prabowo, may Jakarta stay the peace course
AS part of Pampanga representative and former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s visit to Jakarta last September, this writer shook hands and exchanged nods with Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, the landslide winner of that country’s February 14 presidential election.
One of the big local news then, predictably ignored by Western media, was Minister Prabowo denying a purported joint statement by him and his United States counterpart Secretary Lloyd Austin put out by the US defense department at the Pentagon.
As the Indonesian news journal Kompas reported, Prabowo declared: “There was no joint statement and no press conference, yes. What is important for me to underline is that our relationship with China is very good. We respect each other; we already have mutual understanding.” The minister stressed that Indonesia is very friendly with China, respects the US and is friendly with Russia.
The debunked joint statement claimed that Prabowo and Austin had the same view of China’s maritime claims and expansive actions in the South China Sea. Nope, not at all.
“Indonesia’s position is very clear,” said Prabowo at a defense ministry and Indonesian Armed Forces event after his Washington visit. “Indonesia’s position is very clear. We are non-aligned. We are non-aligned; we are friends with all countries. So, I think that’s what’s important” (http:// tinyurl.com/jxwwhr5u).
No to superpower blocs
Maybe the Pentagon expected Minister Prabowo to let the fake news pass after Washington opened its doors to him following decades of shutting him out over alleged human rights violations, especially during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Thankfully, the general put Indonesian foreign policy above all and American geopolitical propagandists in their place.
This laudable forthright assertion of what’s best for Asian nations is precisely what’s needed at this time of superpower machinations, with Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo himself rightly and repeatedly warning in summit and ministerial conferences against making the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) a proxy in geopolitical rivalry.
With Widodo’s support crucial to his victory, plus the president’s son as his running mate, Prabowo should maintain Indonesia’s ageold non-aligned stance, which no less than its founding father Sukarno established, as co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement launched in the Indonesian city of Bandung in 1961.
That said, Washington is really pressing hard to get Asian nations in its regional bloc under its top global priority of “Outcompeting China and Constraining Russia,” spelled out in its National Security Strategy from the White House in late 2022.
A year ago, the US already pressured Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to reverse his long-espoused neutrality policy and let US forces use nine bases of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), including five in Luzon, well-positioned for possible war over Taiwan. Now, even the northernmost Batanes islands, closest to Taiwan, are set for militarization, with locals urged to become AFP reservists.
Having lost its 1990s superiority in weapons technology, as acknowledged by top think tank RAND Corp., funded by the US military, Washington has to build deterrence in concert with other nations in areas of potential conflict (https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA25551.html). Moreover, the current US military chief, Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, wants needed troops and armaments pre-positioned in hotspots.
This writer and former Arroyo Cabinet secretary and Asiaweek editor made these points in presentations on Asian geopolitics at the Indonesian Foreign Minister Institute and the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Administrative Science during the Jakarta visit in September. The two-hour sessions also cited online propaganda, probably by the West, projecting the false narrative that Indonesia was building up its military to counter China.
Needed: Joint Asean security
With its Muslim majority and its longtime opposition to Israel, Indonesia isn’t likely to tie up with staunch Israel ally America. Just this week, the US vetoed another United Nations resolution for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, despite the threat of even more death and debilitation as Israel attacks Rafah, the only enclave in Gaza not yet under the Israeli military’s control.
To help Asean stay neutral and resist superpower blandishments to take sides, Jakarta should go